The Cavaliers are on the clock

Nick Gilbert is the Cavaliers' lucky charm.Dan Gilbert is the proud dad who has never been shy about making bold predictions — or doing so in Comic Sans.Last night, the Cavs' bowtie-wearing traveling party brought home the No. 1 overall pick for the second time in three years.Dan Gilbert also brought more promises.

“Last lottery for a long time. 3rd of 3 yr plan,” he tweeted after his private plane landed in New York early last night.

“Did that just happen? Again! @cavs will be force in east for years to come. Happy for best fans in world: Cavs fans!” he tweeted on the trip back to Ohio.

Gilbert toned down his bravado a bit in a talk with reporters, saying, “We were hoping, regardless of what pick we got, that this would be our last lottery. We thought originally after everything had to be reset that it would be a three-year process. You never know. It could be two or it could be four, but we thought three years. With the No. 1 pick this year, and we also have No. 19, we think this will be the last lottery for a while here.”Well, it wasn't two, since the Cavs, by the time the 2013 draft concludes on June 27, will have four top-four overall selections in a three-year span.Will it be four straight years in the lottery, which would go against the Cavs' rhetoric following a 58-loss season in 2012-13?We'll likely know the answer to that by the end of this summer.If the Cavs trade the top overall selection for a proven player — they have been linked off and on with Timberwolves star Kevin Love — or trade down from No. 1 to select Georgetown's Otto Porter and pick up more assets in the process, we will know they are trying to win in 2013-14.If the Cavs draft Kentucky big man Nerlens Noel first overall and save their salary-cap space for the summer of 2014 (“Hey, LeBron, this is Dan. About that letter I wrote …”), we will know another lottery is probably in the team's future.Which route do you prefer?An All-Star caliber player such as Love likely can't be added without trading the top pick — unless the Timberwolves are big fans of Dion Waiters and/or Tristan Thompson.

If the Cavs are trying to win now, trading the No. 1 selection — which hasn't been done in 20 years, when Orlando dealt Chris Webber — for a top-four pick and a player or two can help them achieve their goal.An enticing option for a franchise that is constantly referring to its “process” of stockpiling assets and cap space has to be Noel.He is recovering from a torn ACL in his left knee and won't be ready at the start of the season.He's 6-foot-11, athletic and would be a much-needed defensive force for a team that had the worst field-goal percentage defense of any club in the league (47.6).The Cavs can afford to take it easy with Noel.They would be able to point to a future with him, Kyrie Irving, Waiters, Thompson, Tyler Zeller and any other rookies they add this June (they have four of the top 33 picks), plus about $18 million in cap space for the Summer of LeBron.But that option would almost certainly result in another dreadful season, and another night with the owner's son wearing his lucky bowtie during ESPN's drawn-out lottery broadcast.Gilbert's tweets indicate that result would be unacceptable.The process might indicate otherwise.

Revisionist history

Cavs fans, pick a pair:

Dion Waiters and Nerlens Noel.

Waiters and Otto Porter.

Harrison Barnes and Ben McLemore.The first two choices are in play.The third might be the best option, though it would have required the Cavs to select Barnes over Waiters at No. 4 last year.Barnes — as we discussed in a blog post last week — distinguished himself as a future force for the Warriors during the playoffs.

If the Cavs had selected Barnes, a small forward, in 2012, they could have paired him with Irving and McLemore — a 6-5 shooting guard who led Kansas in scoring as a freshman in 2012-13.McLemore is a better shooter than Waiters (he shot 49.5% from the field, 42% from 3-point range and 87% from the free-throw line for the Jayhawks), and he would seem to be a better pro prospect (Kansas' Bill Self said McLemore is the most talented player he ever coached).If the Cavs believe McLemore is the best player in this year's draft, they should take him, but if they do, they might have to deal Waiters.When a fan asked Waiters on Twitter last night how he felt about WKRK-FM, 92.3 host Dustin Fox mentioning that Waiters could come off the bench in 2013-14, the guard called such talk “disrespectful.”

More history

The Cavs are the first team to have two No. 1 picks in a three-year span since the Orlando Magic, who had back-to-back top overall picks in 1992 and '93.In 1993-94, the season after the Magic traded Webber for the rights to Penny Hardaway on draft night, the Magic won 50 games and lost in the first round of the playoffs.The following season, they were 57-25, but were swept by Houston in the NBA Finals.In 1995-96, the Magic won 60 games, but were swept by the Bulls in the Eastern Conference finals. That summer, Shaquille O'Neal, the Magic's top pick in 1992, fled to the Lakers in free agency.The Rockets also had consecutive No. 1 overall picks in 1983 and '84 — landing Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon.In 1984-85, they won 48 games and lost in the first round of the playoffs.The Rockets advanced to the NBA Finals in 1986, but didn't make another big postseason impact until 1994, when they won the first of back-to-back championships.By then, Sampson was long gone (he was traded in December 1987).The Cavs certainly don't anticipate a No. 1 overall pick playing fewer than four seasons with them, but they'd gladly take the Rockets' two championships.The next 14 to 15 months should shape a title contender.If four top-four selections, cap space and an owner willing to do whatever it takes isn't enough to build a championship team, the Cavs' 2003, 2011 and 2013 lottery wins might be the subject of an ESPN “30 for 30” documentary in 2020.You can follow me on Twitter for sports information, analysis and more scenarios in which I attempt to rewrite history to help the Cavs win a championship.

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